Smoking Tips

Lighting Your Pipe

Don’t use a torch (blue flame) style lighter – it burns too hot, and can do major damage to your briar.

Don’t use paper matches. The resulting light tastes bad.

Avoid using a standard lighter if at all possible. You can pull it off, but it usually involves tilting your pipe into the flame, which results in burn marks on the rim of your pipe.

Try not to flame the rim of your pipe.

The Best Method

Walk the flame around the top of the tobacco. Puff SLOWLY and rhythmically on your pipe. The longer your draws, the better it will pull the fire into the tobacco.

Keep going until you’ve evenly lit the top.

Once you’ve got a layer of grey ash on top, tamp it down a bit and relight if necessary.

If you’ve never smoked a pipe or cigar before

If you’ve never smoked a pipe or cigar before, you need to know one thing: inhale a lungful of clean air before you draw on your pipe. You need air in your lungs in order to expel the smoke from your mouth. Inhaling pipe or cigar smoke feels and tastes horrible!

If you’re a cigarette smoker, welcome to the other side. Try not to inhale. Puff rhythmically. Be relaxed. Take it slow. Smoking too fast will make the smoke acidic and it’ll bite your tongue. If your pipe is getting hot, you’re puffing too fast.

Every time you smoke

(NOTE: don’t remove the stem from a hot pipe as this will cause your stem to become loose.)

Empty out the ash and dottle (unsmoked tobacco) from your pipe.

Without removing the stem, run a clean pipe cleaner through the stem and into the bowl.

Fold a pipe cleaner in half and use it to wipe the inside of the bowl.